# Did the Earth (amongst other things) travel faster than light?

It's often said that when you look far across space with a telescope you are looking back in time, as the light has only just reached our position in space.

However, given that the Earth and many other things are able to observe this phenomenon, how did we get here before light did?

Did the particles that eventually formed what we know as Earth travel faster than light, was light slowed down somehow, or are they other things at play here?

2) Stars have been outputting light constantly since the big bang. So even in your "explosion" model, there would be no contradiction. You seem to be imagining all the light in the universe being created at once and then "outrunning" everything aways from the explosion centre. But imagine two observers coasting in diverging but roughly parallel paths: observer $A$ to shine a light *at any time after the "explosion" that reaches $B$ sometime afterwards. $B$ does not need to wonder "how did I get here before the light did?". $B$ simply calculates where $A$ was when they sent the light pulse and knows it has to be after the explosion.